Search giant Google released a new tool dedicated to finding snippets of software code on the internet on Thursday.
Google Code Search gives 鈥減rofessional programmers, computer science students and code enthusiasts alike the ability to search over billions of lines of the world鈥檚 publicly accessible source code,鈥� the company said in a statement.
Software developers can search for programs using keywords, strings of code and by specifying a file type or programming language.
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鈥淭he inspiration for Code Search came from a tool we built to quickly search the internal Google code base,鈥� says Eric Case, a programmer who works at Google. 鈥淭his internal search service was used so much that it became clear we should build something for other programmers to use as well.鈥�
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Google Code Search joins a list of other programming search engines, including Koderz and Krugle. The computer book publisher O鈥橰eilly also lets users search through its books for examples of code.
On Wednesday, Google also released tools that users can employ to customise and copy small programs 鈥� known as 鈥済adgets鈥� 鈥� to their own websites. These can deliver live video feeds, games, news clips, weather reports and interactive maps.
Previously in the week, the company revealed a scheme designed to help people learn new languages. A new website called The Literacy Project brings together tools for searching books, videos, blogs and academic articles concerning literacy.
